Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Batch of links

- A European vegan supermarket chain will open in the US next year, in Portland, Oregon. Because of course.

- Two more links on the topic of food waste. In Southern California, there’s an organization called Copia that matches people/restaurants that have excess food with those who are lacking. So far, over 830,000 pounds of food have been saved from the landfill and been put to good use feeding people in need. There’s also a service called CropMobster: using the app, farmers with unsold crops can connect with families who can’t afford to pay full price for them. Win-win!

- On a somewhat related note, there’s a petition asking the USDA to let people use their food stamps to buy food online, thereby granting everyone access to healthy food regardless of where they live (food desert or not). I like the principle of it, obviously, but I worry that healthy food like produce, without being subsidized, is still too expensive to be bought with food stamps. I also think that the number of places accepting food stamps should be expanded, including to farmers’ markets.

- According to the latest census, Americans now spend more money eating out than doing groceries. And yet food blogs and cooking shows are more popular than ever! I can’t help but wonder whether they are a hit only with a subset of the population, or whether people like reading about cooking but with no intention of actually doing any of it…

- And finally, I’ve said before that I pitied Lucky, the elephant at the San Antonio Zoo, because I felt she was anything but lucky. She’s alone in her pen (even though elephants are highly social animals), and the pen itself is small and devoid of stimulation. I was gung-ho about sharing this petition I came across a few days ago, demanding that Lucky be relocated to a sanctuary. So imagine my surprise when, just this morning, the Engineer sent me this article announcing that the zoo has taken in a second elephant, Nicole, rescued from the circus. I’m still hoping that the pen in which the elephants are kept will be improved, but the two seem to be getting along, and I’m so happy that Lucky has some company now!

[Update: I was just reading the August 2016 edition of San Antonio Magazine, and it says that the elephants do in fact have a new habitat! It includes a pool and a dozen new trees, along with other features. Looking forward to seeing it!]